


And Hear No Lies

by ballpoint_banana



Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Canon Bisexual Character, Coming Out, F/M, Family Dynamics, Getting to Know Each Other, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Series, Queer Gen, Relationship Study, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-10
Updated: 2017-06-10
Packaged: 2018-11-12 09:09:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11158725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballpoint_banana/pseuds/ballpoint_banana
Summary: “Wait a minute,” she said. “Is that what you think Twenty Questions is? Just literally asking each other twenty questions?”





	And Hear No Lies

**Author's Note:**

> This is set about a week after the flashback in “Above the Law.” This season’s pre-apocalypse timeline is kind of ambiguous, so I’m gonna define it as such: Kate and David were married for 3 years before the outbreak, and Javi was banned from playing baseball a little over 1 year before the outbreak.

As he sat in the passenger's seat with his eyes closed, Javi realized that he wasn’t sure how long it had been.

It had to have been a week, at least. No more than two. That _felt_ right, but...he couldn’t count the days. He tried to, playing over the last few nights in his head and attempting to distinguish between them. But they all looked the same—time bled together inside the van in a way it never did back at the house. 

 _Christ,_ he was losing his mind.

Javi opened his eyes a little and turned his head by degrees towards the driver’s seat, trying to get a good look at Kate. Even in the thin moonlight, he could see her eyes looking glassy and her knuckles turning white as she clenched the steering wheel. She had insisted that they keep going well into the night, as they had for the last several days. They weren’t moving towards any destination, but that didn’t stop Kate from being determined to get them _somewhere_ as quickly as possible.

“Need me to take over?” Javi asked.

Kate jumped in her seat, throwing a glance in Javi’s direction. After her mind caught up with her surroundings, she exhaled and looked back at the road. “I thought you were asleep.”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” he said. “I was just resting my eyes. I’m good to drive if _you_ want to get some sleep, though.”

“No, it’s fine,” Kate said. “I saw a sign for a gas station about a mile ahead. I’m thinking we should pull over and check that out in the morning, once the sun comes up.”

Javi nodded. Kate maneuvered the car past the shoulder of the road and next to the forest’s edge. As soon as the parking brake was on, she switched off the headlights and turned the keys in the ignition, killing the engine and quieting the world. If anyone living passed by, the van would look like just another abandoned vehicle, left to rot on the side of the road.

Javi craned his neck around to look in the backseat for about the thousandth time that day. Every time he did it, he half-expected Mariana and Gabe not to be there, and felt a strange sense of relief at seeing them still curled up under their seat belts. They were both asleep, chests rising and falling softly, Mari with her headphones on and Gabe with his beanie pulled down over his eyes.

“Try to stay on your toes, okay?” Kate said, not looking at Javi as he turned back around. She removed her handgun from the glove compartment and placed it between their seats, her eyebrows knit together in focus and her lower lip between her teeth.

It hurt him to look at her like this—frayed and exhausted and coiled so goddamn tightly. She was probably losing her mind a little, too.

“If we don’t roll the windows down we’re gonna fucking suffocate in here,” she sighed, “but the last thing we need are _muertos_ crawling out of the woods and pulling you through the window, so just make sure that you—”

“Are you okay?” Javi asked abruptly.

Kate looked up at him. “What?”

“Are you okay,” Javi repeated. “We’ve been on the road non-stop and I feel like you haven’t gotten any rest in days, so I’m asking. Are you okay?”

Kate made an incredulous noise at the back of her throat. “Like, in general? No, not really. I’m not ‘okay.’ I’m not going to _be_ okay until we’re somewhere safe.”

“Well, asked and answered,” Javi muttered. He looked away from her, and his eyes fell to his window. The glass was rolled down a few inches. The sort of shit you do when you leave a dog in a hot car.

Kate rubbed her neck and breathed deeply through her nose. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “You were just being nice. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

“It’s okay,” Javi said, turning back to her.

“It’s just that...whenever we stop moving, I get so fucking wound-up. I hate being out in the open like this.” She placed an elbow against her door and rested her forehead against her hand. “I’m probably gonna be up all night.”

“I know what you mean,” Javi said, and he did. The four of them were always tired now, it was just a fact—but being tired and being relaxed enough to sleep weren’t the same thing.

Kate sighed again—she was doing that a lot these days—and shut her eyes. There was a week's worth of dirt and sweat glistening on her skin. Stray hairs had freed themselves from her braid and fallen around her face, thin and lifeless. Tomorrow morning she would pull herself together again—re-braiding her hair and putting on a brave face for the sake of Gabe and Mari—but right now she looked like she was coming apart at her edges.

Javi made an executive decision.

“Hey,” he said. “Wanna play I Spy?”

Kate opened her eyes and looked at him. “Huh?”

“I Spy,” he repeated with a smile, goading her on. “You know. ‘I spy with my little eye something that’s decomposing.’”

“I’m familiar,” she scoffed. “I just didn’t realize I was taking care of _three_ kids.”

“Come on. I know the inside of this van like the back of my hand. Hell, probably even better. It’ll be...you know...fun. You remember what fun is?”

“Yeah, I do,” she laughed. “And it sure as shit wasn’t ‘I Spy.’”

Javi clicked his tongue. “Fine. You like Truth or Dare? Hangman? How about Coke or Pepsi? Are you up for a little Coke or Pepsi?”

“Are you actually a twelve year old girl?”

“Oh, hey,” he said, “what about Twenty Questions? The answer to the one you just asked is ‘no,’ by the way.”

“Wait a minute,” she said. “Is that what you think Twenty Questions is? Just literally asking each other twenty questions?”

“Yeah. That’s how I always played it at summer camp.”

“Where the hell did you go to summer camp? That is _so not_ what Twenty Questions is.” A smile had spread across her face. “That doesn’t even sound like a game! That’s just...a conversation with bumpers.”

“It’s a get-to-know-you exercise,” Javi retorted. “Come on, humor me. I could use the mental stimulation.”

“Alright,” Kate said. “I just need you to know that this _definitely_ isn’t a real game.”

“Fair enough.”

“And since this is your crazy-ass fake game, you need to go first.”

“Also fair.” Javi thought for a moment, watching Kate out of the corner of his eye. “Do you want a softball question, or a real one?”

Kate raised an eyebrow. “Softball, I guess?”

“Okay,” Javi said. “What’s something I don’t know about you?”

“Something you don’t know about me?” she repeated. “Just... _anything_?”

“Yeah.” Javi smiled. “It doesn’t have to be huge.”

“I don’t know, man. This doesn’t sound like a softball question.”

“And that doesn’t sound like an answer.”

“ _Fine_ ,” she laughed. “Just...let me think.”

Javi did. He watched Kate’s fingers playing mindlessly with the hem of her shirt. Her nails were splitting. Javi back to when her nails used to be painted every time he came around to visit. In autumn she liked earth tones—shades of burgundy and mossy green. In the winter she liked blues. Javi didn’t know what she did in the spring, since that was baseball season, and he was always anywhere but Maryland.

“Alright,” she said at last. “I didn’t tell anybody this, but...earlier this year I applied to work for National Geographic, at their headquarters in DC.”

Javi raised his eyebrows. “No shit?”

“No shit,” she confirmed. “It was just a receptionist position. It’s not like I would have been doing anything cool. I just liked the idea of working there and being close to something that exciting.”

“That sounds like it would have been nice,” Javi said.

“I don’t know,” she sighed. “It was mostly just a dream. I had no plan for what I’d do if I actually got the damn job. Since I had to watch the kids when they got home from school, I couldn’t exactly commute two-and-a-half hours for work every day. I had this crazy fantasy about us moving closer to the District so we could try and make it work, but then your dad got sicker and your mother needed an extra set of hands, so I just...dropped it.”

Javi felt a twinge of guilt. He should have been there. He knew that back then, and he knew it now. It was one of the thoughts that played on a loop in the back of his mind during quiet moments. Maybe, if he’d stuck around like he should have, he could have helped Kate with all of this. For a little while, at least.

“Anyway,” Kate said, crossing her arms. “Then the dead rose and started roaming the earth, so, you know. Labor market slack.”

Javi smiled. “Competition sure is brutal out there right now.”

“Alright, enough about me,” Kate said. “Same question. What’s something I don’t know about _you_?”

“Aw, that’s boring. You gonna copy my questions the whole time?”

“ _That doesn’t sound like an answer_ ,” Kate echoed, lowering her voice in an attempt to mimic Javi’s.

“That’s _not_ what I sound like,” Javi said. “But, fine. Give me a second.”

Javi stuck his tongue in his cheek as his mind ran through the catalogue of things Kate didn’t know about him. There was plenty of material there—Javi was sure the same could be said for Kate regarding him—but he wasn’t sure what exactly he wanted her to know. They had spent so long navigating the narrow role of in-laws, with all the guarded geniality that label entailed. He was still trying to figure out exactly what they were now, exactly how far he could—or _should_ —push this envelope.

Finally, he thought of something.

“Okay,” he said with a sigh. “Right after the League booted me, I went to Gamblers Anonymous meetings for a month.”

Kate’s mouth fell open a little. “Oh, shit,” she said. “Seriously? How was it?”

“Not very anonymous,” Javi said. “People knew who I was. My face was still in the newspapers. No one was supposed to say anything, obviously, but the guy who ran the meetings liked to call me ‘Charlie Hustle.’”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, I know. I was only doing it for my mom, anyway. Knowing that I was going made her...feel better. She liked for me to send her pictures of the little sobriety coins they give you.” Javi left off the fact that he’d bought his own coins online, sending his mother the pictures long after he’d stopped going to the meetings.

“Do you think that it...helped?” Kate asked.

“Well, no, because I don’t _actually_ have a gambling problem.”

“So you didn’t even make it past step _one_. Damn.”

Javi rolled his eyes and pressed his lips together to suppress a smile. “Don’t make me sorry I told you.”

Kate laughed. “Alright, I can see the appeal of this question thing. It’s still not a _game_ , but...I see the appeal.”

“I knew you’d come around,” Javi said with a grin. “Ready for another one?”

“Shoot,” she said.

“What’s something that you miss from before all of this?” Javi asked. “Not a person. Just...a thing.”

“Oh, I think about this one all time,” Kate said. “There isn’t any one, big thing. Just a bunch of small stuff, you know?”

“Like what?”

“Like, dumb things. Being able to text people, and call them on the phone. Having a closet full of clean clothes. Going to the Inner Harbor in the summer and just...just walking around with the kids, looking at the boats. All this stuff that I used to take for granted.”

“No, I get it,” Javi said. “That stuff isn’t dumb. Those moments are the glue that hold the rest of our lives together.”

“Poetic,” Kate deadpanned. “You write that one yourself?”

“I might have accidentally plagiarized it from a fortune cookie.”

“Oh, fuck, fortune cookies.” Kate closed her eyes and made a wistful noise in the back of her throat. “Forget everything I just said. I miss take-out Chinese food more than anything. Period. The end.”

“If we start talking about food, were never going to stop,” Javi laughed. “Come on, let’s keep moving. Gimme a hard one.”

“A hard one, huh? Okay, you asked for it. I’m gonna pitch you a real curveball here, García.”

“Oh, my God. Everybody, stand back; she’s using baseball analogies.”

Kate smiled him. “What’s something you _don’t_ miss from before all of this? What’s something you’re happy is gone now?”

_Huh._

Alright. That one really _did_ throw Javi off.

He leaned back against his headrest, blowing air out of his nose. “Well, I spend a lot of time complaining these days, so this one is going to be tough for me...”

“No rush,” Kate said, the shadow of a smirk on her face.

For a minute, Javi sat in silence as he tried—fruitlessly—to think of an answer. She was essentially asking him to tell her something that he liked about this new world, and _that_ was nearly impossible. He was always hungry, tired, and worried about some damn thing. Even stuff Javi used to hate before, he now missed—a few weeks ago, he’d a dream about going to the DMV and getting his license renewed, and it was fucking _delightful_.

Adjusting his strategy, Javi decided to try and work backwards. What was he grateful for now? He was grateful that Kate and Gabe and Mariana were alive. So too was he was grateful, in a way that made him feel sort of sick, that his mother and father and uncle hadn’t had to live through the end of the world. Beyond that, he was grateful that he no longer had to worry about little things that had never really mattered to him, the stuff he’d had put up with just to get along. No more navigating pleasantries or bureaucracy. He didn’t have to worry about the things people expected him to say, or the way they expected him to say it.

Yeah. That was one thing he definitely didn’t miss.

“Politics,” Javi said at last.

Kate raised an eyebrow. “Huh.”

“What?”

“That just wasn’t the kind of answer I was expecting,” she said with a shrug. “I get it, though. I’m kind of glad I don’t have to keep up with the batshit crazy stuff that comes out of politicians mouths anymore.”

“Nah, that’s not what I mean,” Javi said. “I’m not talking about _politics_ politics. Actually, ‘representative democracy’ is in my top-five list of _Things I Really Fucking Miss_.”

“Oh, yeah? I’m really enjoying all the anarchy and despotism, myself.”

Javi rolled his eyes at her, then stared out his window. “I meant ‘politics’ as in ‘office politics,’ you know? I used to spend a lot of my time before dealing with other people’s opinions and rules—bureaucratic stuff. I guess one upside to society collapsing is that now I don’t have to.”

“No more anti-gambling legislation to worry about?” she teased. “MLB can’t stop you now?”

“Right,” Javi laughed. “And other stuff, too.”

Kate quirked an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

Javi thought for a moment and decided,  _Fuck it._ He was probably going to tell her this at some point anyway, and now was as good a time as any.

“Hey, here’s another fun Snapple Fact about me,” Javi said a little lamely. “I like men. I mean—I like women, but I like men, too.”

“Oh,” Kate said, sounding a little startled. When she didn’t say anything more, Javi raised an eyebrow.

“Is that...cool with you?” he asked.

“Oh—of course!” Kate said quickly. “Sorry. Yeah, it’s completely cool, I’m just…I’m surprised, I guess. You never mentioned that to me before.”

“Well, that’s because...I’ve never told anyone before right now." 

Kate’s eyes widened. A long, heavy silence grew between them. Nothing but the sound of crickets outside and the kids breathing softly in the backseat.

“Shit,” Kate said. “Really?”

Javi stared at her a moment longer. Then—

“Nah,” he said, laughing. “I’ve been sleeping with dudes since I was nineteen— _obviously_ you’re not the first person I’ve told.”

“Oh, Jesus _Christ._ ” Kate let out the breath she’d been holding and swatted Javi’s arm, which only made him laugh harder.

“Jeez, Kate, the look on your face—”

“Shut up,” Kate growled. “You’re an ass. For a second I thought I was going to need to have some kind of _Lifetime_ movie moment with you and I nearly shit a brick.”

“Sorry! You walked right into it.”

She swatted his arm again for good measure, then slumped back into her seat.

“Seriously, though,” he said. “It’s not a secret. I just...I kept it low-key while I was playing baseball, you know? Professional sports aren’t exactly known for their inclusive atmospheres. I just didn’t want to deal. And now I don’t have to. So...silver lining, I guess.”

“I understand that,” Kate said. “Why didn’t you ever tell _me_ , though?”

“You didn’t ask?” Javi offered.

When Kate gave him a look, Javi threw up his hands and laughed.

“I don’t know!” he said. “It just didn’t come up! I guess I’ve just never really been the type to bring home a date on Thanksgiving.”

“Or show up on Thanksgiving at all.”

“Okay, that was _one year._ ”

“Uh huh.”

“And I’ve apologized about a thousand times.”

“Hey, _I_ forgave you! I get it. I’d love to skip Thanksgiving dinner to go...gosh, what was it that you did again?”

Javi stayed silent.

“Come on, Javi.” Kate smiled. “I’m having trouble remembering. Why exactly did you ditch your family on Thanksgiving?”

Javi muttered something under his breath.

“I didn’t catch that.”

“To see a Blue Öyster Cult cover band,” Javi said, exasperated.

Kate’s smile twisted, threatening laughter. “To see a Blue Öyster Cult cover band _where?_ ”

Javi sighed deeply and ran his hands over his face. “At an oyster bar,” he groaned.

“Oh, _that’s_ right,” Kate said, nodding sagely with shit-eating grin on her face. “Of course. That sounds like it was _worth it_. Thanks for jogging my memory.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Javi said. “Whatever. Can we go back to talking about...literally anything else, please?”

“I’ve got another question, although this one is more of a yes-or-no, follow-up type of deal. Do you mind if I bend the rules?”

“Go ahead,” Javi said. “That’s the best part of making up your own game, you know.”

“Okay,” Kate said, “tell me if I’m prying, but...did David know that you're...bisexual or whatever?”

At the mention of David, Javi felt a wave of something that resembled sadness, or contrition, or both. It was the feeling that had accompanied the shadow of his brother ever since he and Kate had hit the road. Kate must have felt something similar, because the two of them usually avoided talking about him whenever humanly possible.

“First of all, you can leave off the ‘whatever,’” Javi said wryly. “And yeah, he knew. He didn’t care. To his credit, he didn’t even bat an eye when I first told him.” Javi scratched the back of his neck and laughed hollowly. ”That’s probably why he never mentioned it to you. David only really liked to talk about me when it involved shit he thought I should change—you know, my biggest weaknesses, my character flaws. All that fun stuff.”

“That was him, alright,” Kate said. “He was...pessimistic like that.”

Kate spit out each syllable of the word— _pes-si-mis-tic_ —as if it tasted poisonous. She sounded apologetic. She sounded _pissed_.

Javi sighed. “I don’t know. David could be a real son-of-a-bitch sometimes, but he wasn’t always wrong. I made my fair share of mistakes. Fell off a wagon or two.”

“Yeah, and so did he,” Kate said. “It shouldn’t have mattered. It didn’t excuse his bullshit. You don’t have to defend him anymore, Javi.”

 _Whoa_.

Javi reeled back. What exactly was she trying to say? The way she said his name sounded like the jab of a knife—and without thinking, Javi jabbed back.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Javi asked.

Kate sighed and scratched at her temple. “Nevermind. Forget it.”

“I’m not defending him, Kate,” Javi said. “I’ll be the first person to tell you that the guy had his flaws. He didn’t always do right by me. But I didn’t always do right by _him_ , and I regret that, okay? So now, I’m just trying not to speak ill of the….”

Javi stopped short of spitting out the last word.

“Alright,” Kate said quietly. “Whatever, let’s just...drop it.”

But Javi didn’t want to drop it. He couldn’t. All he could do was pick his next words carefully and try not ruin things more than he already had. He didn’t want to fuck this up—not tonight, not when things were going so well between them, when Kate had been happy for the first time in weeks, when for one second she was existing unencumbered by the fear that none of them would live to see the sunrise.

“Kate,” Javi began, “you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but—”

“Oh, God,” she said. In the darkness, Javi saw her face fall. She knew what he was going to ask her. She _knew_.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Don’t be sorry,” she said coldly. “Just ask me.”

“Kate, I—”

She cut him off with a shake of her head. Her eyes were closed, shut and locked. “It’s fine, Javi.” A defeated whisper. That exhaustion seeping off her skin again. “It’s fine. It really is. Ask me.”

Javi bit the bullet.

“Are you glad that David is gone?”

Kate stared forward for a moment, then two, then three. Wordlessly, she turned her head to look out her window, obscuring her face from Javi’s view. He felt panic blooming in his stomach, but he knew better than to keep throwing words and questions at her, not now, not yet. Instead, he waited, focusing on the rise and fall of her shoulders as she breathed.

“There were a lot of bad times,” Kate said, still turned away from him. “Especially towards the end. But there were also good times. And they were really,  _really_ good.”

She began mindlessly twisting her wedding ring around her finger. “David was passionate, and he was fearless, and when he set his mind to something, he worked harder than anyone I’ve ever known. And I loved that. A part of me still loves that. But...something changed. Or maybe nothing changed and I just finally started seeing the truth; I don’t know. He was just so goddamn _angry_ at everything, me included. Every conversation we had was like a battle that he was trying to win, and it was exhausting. It was _miserable_. And I understand now what I couldn’t back then, Javi—good times and bad times can’t cancel each other out in a marriage. There is no equilibrium. If the ‘bad times’ make you feel that fucking terrible, then none of the good shit is worth it. It just isn’t.”

Kate turned to face him. Javi’s breath was caught in his throat. “I’m sorry if this is hard for you to hear, okay? I know he’s your brother. I’m not glad that we don’t know where he is, and I’m not glad that Gabe and Mariana miss their father so much. I don’t want him to be dead. I _really_ don’t want that. But...I didn’t want him in my life anymore, either. That marriage was crushing me, and one way or another, it needed to end. So... _yeah_ , Javi.” The word hit the ground like an anvil. There it was—a confession, an avowal of the truth, small and monumental all at once. “Yeah. I guess I’m glad that he’s gone.”

Javi could feel his heart beating as the full weight of her words pressed into him.

“Okay, then,” he breathed. “Okay. Thank you for telling me.”

Kate closed her eyes again and rested her head against her window.

He felt nauseous. He felt weightless. He wanted to make things better. He wanted to reach out and touch her hand, to slide his fingers over hers and hold onto her until the world ended for good. He wanted to, but he knew it was the fastest way to make things worse—for her _and_ for him.

“Fuck,” Javi breathed. “We should have played I Spy.”

Thankfully, Kate laughed a little, her eyes still closed. “Yeah. Maybe next time.”

“You should really get some sleep,” Javi said. “I’ll keep watch, and we can talk about this more in the morning if you want, or we could never talk about it again, just...please try and get some rest.”

“Not yet,” she said. “I’ve got another question.”

Javi’s could feel his heart flatten against his chest.

“Do you think it was a mistake to leave?” she whispered. “Because I’m sure starting to think it might have been.”

Javi shook his head. “Kate…”

“I thought we’d find some sort of disaster relief by now. Maybe the military. Some kind of safe zone, a community, _something_ .” Her voice was breaking, just a little. Hairline fractures. “I didn’t think it would be like _this_. I didn’t think anything would be worse than waiting in that fucking mausoleum of a house. But I was wrong. And now we’re all fucked because of me.”

“No,” Javi said. “ _No_. Kate, you didn’t do anything wrong. You were doing what was best for the kids. We couldn’t have stayed at the house, you know that. And it’s only been a week. We’ll… we’ll find something. We will. We just have to keep trying, okay?”

She didn’t reply. She kept her eyes shut.

“Kate, please. Look at me.”

At last, Kate opened her eyes. As she turned to face him, her eyes widened.

In the next moment, three things happened at once.

Kate screamed his name. She reached for the gun. Javi felt cold, bony fingers sliding onto his neck.

“Oh, _fuck_ —”

Javi heard a throaty growl coming from behind him. Two dead hands clawed at him, one grabbing at his chest, the other at his throat.

 _“Kate!”_ He yelled. “Gah, _fuck_ —”

He braced himself against the dashboard, tried to pry the fingers off of him. The _muerto_ groaned somewhere above him. It’s grip was too tight. Kate was gone and the kids had woken up and—

“Javi!” Gabe yelled. “Oh, my God!”

Mari was shrieking. Behind him, Javi heard teeth against the glass.

“ _Shit_ ,” Javi growled. “KATE—”

Two hands on his neck now, pressing into his flesh, pulling him against window, then—

 _“Hey!”_ Kate yelled behind him. “Over here!”

Suddenly, Javi felt the hands slide off of him. He quickly turned around to look out the window, and saw that the _muerto_ had turned around as well. It was facing Kate, who was standing by the front of the van with the gun in her hand.

“That’s right,” she said. “C’mere.”

The _muerto_ made another throaty noise and shambled towards her. When it was a few feet in front of her, Kate raised the handgun and pulled the trigger in one shift motion. The creature’s head snapped back before collapsing in a heap on the road.

Kate stared at the corpse for only a moment before rushing back to the driver’s side door and crawling into the van. She put her hands on either side of Javi’s face, tilting it left and right.

“Oh, my God, are you okay?” she said. She looked closely at his neck.

“I’m okay,” Javi said. “Fuck. Yeah, I’m...I’m okay.”

“Javi...are you...?” Gabe whimpered. Mari was crying.

“It’s alright, buddy,” Javi said. “I’m alright. It’s over now.”

Kate let out a sigh of relief. Her hands relaxed, sliding down Javi’s neck and landing on his shoulders. “No scratches.”

“Yeah, thanks to  _you_ ,” Javi said, putting his hands over hers.

For a moment, they stayed there like that, frozen inches from each other and trying not to drown in the thought of what could have been. Kate’s eyes looked him up and down before meeting his gaze.

“I mean it,” Javi said. “Thank you.”

Kate stared at him a moment longer, then pulled back.

“Change of plans,” she said as she sat back down and buckled her seatbelt. “We need to move. Every _muerto_ on the East Coast probably heard that gunshot.”

“Yeah,” Javi said. “Okay.”

As Kate turned the ignition and threw on the headlights, Javi crawled into the backseat. Still shivering, Mari and Gabe made room for Javi to sit between them as Kate pulled back onto the road.

“It’s okay,” Javi said in a daze, putting one arm around each of them, holding them as tightly as he could. In turn, Gabe had his arm wrapped around Javi’s torso, and Mari clung to his shirt like a vicegrip. He kissed both of their heads as they shook in his arms.

“It’s okay,” he kept saying, because it was. Somehow, it was. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Javi looked out the windshield and watched the inky blackness of the road passing them by. He looked at the rear-view mirror and saw Kate’s eyes locked on the road, now fresh and alert with adrenaline. For a moment, her eyes met his in the mirror, and she gave a small nod. Javi nodded back.

“It’s okay,” he breathed again, and he meant it. Even if the kids didn’t believe it right now, even if Kate didn’t, Javi knew the truth. It didn’t matter where they were, if they were holed up in a house or a stuck in the van or dangling off the edge of the earth. They would be okay.

 _He_ would be okay. He had Kate.


End file.
